WORLD

The “Congress on Your Corner” event on Saturday morning, Jan. 8 in Tucson, Arizona was at least the second such constituent event hosted by U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords that was attended by Jared Lee Loughner, the 22-year-old Tucson resident who is charged by federal authorities with shooting Giffords, and killing U.S. District Judge John Roll and Gabriel Zimmerman, a Giffords’ aide, according to the FBI.

Research In Motion, maker of BlackBerry smart phone, on Monday said it will filter websites in Indonesia very soon following the government’s threat to curtail its services in the country if it fails to block access to pornographic sites.

Jared Lee Loughner, who is held responsible for the killing of six people including a federal judge and critically wounding Gabrielle Giffords, Democratic Congresswoman from the state, is variously described as a right wing extremist, a mentally deranged killer, an anti-government fanatic, a white supremacist and as a die-hard leftist who adored Che Guevara.

Many of the U.S. economic indicators, including the unemployment data on Friday, over the past few weeks have given rise to the false belief that the economy is finally improving.

Twitter's fight to make public the fact that it has been subpoenaed by the U.S. government seeking details about all WikiLeaks-related accounts has now put the light on other internet majors such as Google Inc and Facebook.

A group of Israeli university lecturers sign a petition boycotting the University Center of Samaria situated in the large West Bank settlement of Ariel.

The vote on repealing the Obama healthcare reform law, originally slated for this week in the House of Representatives, has been postponed, due to the shootings in Arizona Saturday morning that killed six people and seriously wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-AZ.

The U.S. military is looking to cut back on F-35 jet fighter purchases in its largest, but increasingly delayed aviation program, whose rising costs have received Congressional scrutiny.

A celebrity gossip website on Friday posted a photo that it claims shows Inland Rep. Mary Bono Mack in a playful, but compromising position.

US President Barack Obama addresses the nation following the shooting of public officials on January 8, 2011.

UPDATED: U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, D-AZ, is fighting for her life following surgery for a gunshot wound to the head, sustained Saturday morning at a constituent event in Tucson. Her surgeon, Dr. Peter Rhee of University Medical Center, said, I am very optimistic about her condition.

The recent spate of energy diplomacy between china and United States have resulted in China slash export quotas of rare earth mineral by half in 2011.

Global aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, has once again partnered with Qatar Airways and the non-profit global health and disaster relief organization AmeriCares to deliver a second consignment of relief supplies to the flood-stricken areas in Pakistan.

One side says that the Affordable Care Act, if allowed to work, will reduce the deficit by $100 billion over 10 years, and by more than $1 trillion over 20 years, and to repeal it would be disastrous.

In the midst of the buzz and optimism about the economic recovery in 2011, not many are talking about the fact that cost in America may also meaningfully rise, possibly at a faster rate than justified by underlying economic growth.

More than 2-million people in the United Kingdom have used their credit cards to pay their mortgage or rent in the last twelve months, a 50 percent increase from the prior year, according to Shelter, the British housing and homelessness charity.

The Democratic White House and the Republicans who control the House of Representatives each found the December jobs figures released today mildly encouraging. While the administration, however, took credit for the steady albeit slow improvement, the new Republican chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee said the plodding economy points up the need to change failed administration policies.

Politicians now prefer to appoint JPMorgan executives to highly-visible positions rather than risk public outrage by choosing their Goldman Sachs counterparts.

While the House of Representatives is moving towards repealing the national healthcare reform law passed last year, residents of the nation’s largest state are facing another round of health insurance rate hikes.

In a speech before a congressional committee this morning, Federal reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned that it could take years before unemployment falls to normalized levels, thus justifying the continuing need for the central bank’s $600-billion bond-buying scheme

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech on economic outlook and monetary and fiscal policy before the committee on the budget, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C., Jan. 7, 2011

Chinese authorities are planning to construct a “seven-star hotel” in western Beijing’s Mentougou district, about 30 kilometers from the Chinese capital center, in a $1.3 billion joint project with Saudi Arabia.

Economy in both the euro area and the EU27 grew at a much slower pace in the second quarter, according to the second estimate by Eurostat, the official statistical office of the European Union

Better management of oil industry-related companies BP, Halliburton and Transocean could have almost certainly prevented an underwater oil rig blowout last year that led to the largest ever U.S. oil spill, a presidential panel concluded in its final report.

It is only the second day of the 112th Congress and charges of hypocrisy and broken promises are flying around the House of Representatives. As may have been expected, these charges are coming from the Democrats, who are now in the minority.

President Barack Obama today appointed William Daley as the new White House chief of staff.

The U.S. Senate convened yesterday for the first session of the 112th Congress. It did some procedural work, honored Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-MD, for being the longest serving woman senator, talked until after sundown and recessed until Jan. 25.

If statistics is your thing – whether for scholarly work, trivial pursuit, or just to impress a date – you may want to look into the latest edition of the U.S. government’s best-selling reference book: the Census Bureau’s Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2011.

In an annual survey conducted by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, India for the first time topped the list as the most attractive destination, overtaking China.